Michaeleddie Rivera
Michaeleddie Rivera is an elite male cheerleader. He is the first boy to ever win Worlds three years in a row in the Small Co-ed Division, with the Cali Smoed team that he was also the captain of; one of these years was as part of the CA Smoed 2013 Team. He began cheerleading aged 12, when he also played football. He is very skilled at tumbling. He won Worlds in 2010, 2012, 2013, and 2014. In 2011 he came second. He appeared as himself on the documentary series Cheerleaders and in a recurring role as a male cheerleader on Glee. Michaeleddie is close friends with Robert Scianna, who calls them "husbands" in a platonic way. When Robert first moved to California, Michaeleddie was one of the few people who he spent time with outside of cheerleading practice. They also performed tumbling together. His longtime best friend is Kira Shutt, though, as they were both Cali Smoed veterans and went to school together. On the way to Worlds in 2011, the pair sat next to each other. Because they came second this year, they would not sit next to each other in the following years. The superstition seems to ring true, as they achieved a three-peat from 2012-2014. Michaeleddie also threw up a lot during practice and before performing, and this was said to be a superstition, too: if he didn't throw up before he went on stage, the team wouldn't win. He grew a beard over summer 2013, which truly established his age over the rest of his squad. Three-peat Worlds Wins Michaeleddie was on the Cali Smoed team from 2009. The team had won Worlds in 2010, but in 2011 they came second to the Brandon Allstars. In 2012 they won both NCA Nationals and Worlds. When in 2013 they lost at Nationals to Brandon, their confidence was shaken, but they were still determined to win Worlds; the loss didn't matter as they already had a full-paid bid to compete at the World Championships from the San Jose meet earlier in the season. At Worlds in 2013, there were mistakes in the routine enough for the coaches and athletes to think that they had placed second - they had enough confidence in their routine that they couldn't be outside the top three unless a major incident occurred. Michaeleddie and the coaches were also confident going into the results as the Brandon Allstars had experienced such an incident (none of their stunts stayed up) and so wouldn't be in the running. Ultimately, the team did place first, cheering in surprise when the second place team was announced and it wasn't them. This made them the first team to win at Worlds twice in a row in the small coed division, and set them up for wanting to really go down in history and make it a three-peat. During the 2012/13 season, Michaeleddie had been saying that the season wasn't all about winning, even if they were desperate to do so, but about how it would go down in history. This is because of the tumultuous start, breaking what was known as the Palm Springs curse, and the members both coming and going. Remaining on the team, Michaeleddie then captained a half-renewed team to a Worlds victory once more, in 2014. Because there was such a great turnover of experienced cheerleaders, the winning of the biggest accolade is another amazing feat that he noted should also make history. Glee Michaeleddie has guest starred in several episodes of the television show Glee as a cheerleader on the WMHS Cheerios!. There are few male cheerleaders seen on the show that aren't main characters, and he not only performed cheer and dance routines but also was a background actor at the William McKinley High School. Even though actress Naya Rivera plays the cheerleader Santana on Glee and has a brother called Mychal, they are unrelated. Category:California Allstars Smoed